“Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”—Alasdair Gray.

“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders

Last week I received my contributor copies of The Alternate Book of Mammoth HistoriesThe History Book of Alternate MammothsThe Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, edited by Ian Watson and Ian Whates. The covers of all anthologies of alternate history must, by law, include a picture of a Zeppelin or Hitler (just as all American libertarian books must, under some obscure interstate commerce regulation, show a picture of that big government statue in New York harbour) and this one scores on both counts, in both its (alternate) versions. I'm very proud indeed to have one of the three original stories in it, alongside no less than 22 reprints, some of them classics and some quite new to me. Ian Whates gives the contents list here. I haven't read them all but I haven't had a let-down yet. James Morrow's 'The Raft of the Titanic' is going to be a future classic, and among the reprints Keith Roberts' 'Weinachtsabend' is one of the best SF short stories in a number of highly competitive categories (alternate history, 'Hitler wins', British New Wave, and, indeed 'short stories by Keith Roberts') and it's good to see it back in print.

If the guy on the cover is meant to be Tesla, the cover artist has sure made him look like the Austrian corporal. Maybe there's an alternate history where Tesla led the Iron Guard. I wouldn't want to live there.